1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system for identifying Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) ID's of terminals in a VLAN, and more specifically relates to a method of automatically identifying and setting a VLAN ID for a terminal, rather than having a user set a VLAN ID by hand.
2. Description of the Related Art
Related switching hubs for sending and receiving frames disclosing VLAN information are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication (kokai) No. Heisei 11-074923. The following system is well known as a system for creating a VLAN. A user sets a VLAN to which a terminal belongs by hand. The terminal sends this VLAN information together with a GVRP (a GARP VLAN Registration Protocol conforming to IEEE802.1Q, where GARP is an abbreviation for Generic Attribute Registration Protocol) packet message over a Local Area Network (LAN) to a LAN switch (hereinafter abbreviated to LSW) for relaying frames. When the LSW receives this GVRP packet message, this VLAN information is registered at the LSW. The above is one system for creating a VLAN.
When creating VLANs capable of processing tag frames conforming to IEEE802.1Q (hereinafter referred to as TAG-VLANs), the addition and withdrawal of terminals to and from the TAG-VLAN is performed by a user manually setting a VLAN ID for each terminal using existing functions of the terminal.
Even if this related system is employed, communication can then be commenced by setting existing TAG-VLAN ID's for each terminal and then transmitting and receiving packets. This means that work such as confirming the TAG-VLAN ID conditions from a network manager in advance has to be carried out offline. When a new TAG-VLAN is created, it is still necessary to set TAG-VLAN ID's manually from the terminals. This is a laborious procedure where the same setting operation has to be repeated N times when N terminals are to be set.